The Financial Crisis Of 2007-08

In the movie the big short, Lewis Ranieri, who is a banker of the Wall Street, created an idea that companies packed thousands of mortgage all bundled together to sell, which is the AAA credit-rating bond, and can obtain high yields with low risk because everyone should pay for their mortgage. The concept of Lewis Ranieri is called mortgage-backed securities (MBS). However, the demand of buying MBS is more than MBS supply. Therefore, when the risk of MBS is high, Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) is a way to change subprime loans to high- rating bonds and it can be sold again. Although CDO is full of subprime loans, it still can get AAA rating because

Before the advent of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 1933 and the general conception of government safety nets, the United States banking industry was quite different than it is today. Depositors assumed substantial default risk and even the slightest changes in consumer confidence could result in complete turmoil within the banking world. In addition, bank managers had almost complete discretion over operations. However, today the financial system is among the most heavily government- regulated sectors of the U.S. economy. This drastic change in public policy resulted directly from the industry’s numerous pre-regulatory failures and major disruptions that produced severe economic and social

In this essay, I will briefly explain what happened during the financial crisis of 2007-09, and also discuss the contribution of the government to the financial crisis.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers, a sprawling global bank, in September 2008 almost brought down the world’s financial system. Considered by many economists to have been the worst financial crisis since the Great depression of the 1930s. Economist Peter Morici coined the term the “The Great Recession” to describe the period. While the causes are still being debated, many ramifications are clear and include the failure of major corporations, large declines in asset values (some estimates put the drop in the trillions of dollars range), substantial government intervention across the globe, and a significant decline in economic activity. Both regulatory and market based solutions have been proposed or executed to attempt to combat the causes and effects of the crisis.

While financial banks were inadequately controlled by regulatory agencies, there was a necessity for fresh policies to resolve these issues. Prior to the Volcker Rule becoming implemented, the crooked financial activity done at the time had affected the clients of the banks. The complexity of the regulations caused dissatisfaction for the clients and customers and eventually affected the overall business flow of the bank institutions. There was a strong need for new procedures and restrictions before the banking industry would have another breakdown and in the worst case, cause another financial crisis within the American economy. The biggest problem during this crucial financial time included how the banking industry was consistently earning large amount of money from these high-risk trades with the institution’s own

The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that defined the roles for commercial banks, investments banks and insurance firms was over ridden by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (1999) which repealed the provisions that restricted affiliations in financial institutions. Hence one solution is to overcome the incentive problem and the conflict of interests that arise when financial institutions simultaneously undertake financial activities of varied nature.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into federal law by President Obama on July 21, 2010 as a response to the financial crisis of 2007-08. From an economic standpoint the overall consensus leading to the financial crisis can be linked to not only greed, but to ‘excessive deregulation’ and the “finanicialization of everything” (Knight 2015). Supposedly, the failures were due to the financial sector being funded by debt, which already sounds unethical and a poorly planned system. Prior to Dodd-Frank legislation was the Banking Act of 1933, which had similar intentions of providing stability. However, the Act was eaten away over time and companies weren’t as strictly regulated (Acharya 2013).

During the lead up to the financial crisis of 2007-08, a term was coined to describe what was happening in the financial markets. The term was: Shadow Banking System. The creation of the term was attributed to economist and money manager, Paul McCulley, who described it as a large segment of financial intermediation that is routed outside the balance sheets of regulated commercial banks and other depository institutions (St. Louis Fed). In simpler terms, institutions that are in the shadow banking system are not regulated like commercial banks, and carry more risk due to their investments. Examples of shadow banking institutions are money market funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, etc. During the early 1990s, most American citizens didn’t know or never heard of money market funds or mutual funds; typically, the only people who knew of the “shadow banking system” were most likely senior officers at the big banks or individuals who were experts in the financial markets. However, that all changed. At the turn of the century, the shadow banking system started to gain steam and was growing at a faster rate than traditional banks. At the peak of its growth, right before the financial crisis, the shadow banking system, in terms of liabilities, was about 1.5-2 times larger than traditional banks (St. Louis Fed).

The world before the financial crisis of 2008 had stability. Iceland in 2000 was viewed as the perfect place to live and have your family grow. Iceland had clean energy, high standard of living, jobs, and low government debt. Iceland was a place were children played and parents laughed and enjoyed their life. Everyone lived well; Iceland was the role model of finance, until it all melted away. Iceland let giant corporations come into its territory and exploit its geothermal and hydroelectric resources and its banks became so large to where their banks became larger than their economy, impossible to bail out. The banks became unruly where the people even supposed to regulate the bank one third of them worked for the bank. The cause of the

The financial crisis of 2008 was the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. It caused the collapse, take over, merging, or buying out of financial services firms and banks such as, Lehman Brothers, Merill Lynch, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, AIG, Royal Bank of Scotland, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The “Big Three” credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, and Fitch Ratings, were at the helm of the financial crisis of 2008 because they were all found of wrongly assigning triple- A securities ratings to mortgages and debt assets that were way below “investment grade” level, which greatly contributed to the growing financial crisis. The ensuing result of the financial crisis of 2008 was the Great Recession, a period of great economic decline in America and the rest of the world. The financial crisis and Great Recession were triggered by subprime mortgages and mortgage backed securities, known as Collaterized Debt Obligations (CDOs). Mortgage-backed securities are a form of an asset-backed security that deals with different type of mortgages, while subprime mortgages are mortgages that are loaned out to people with low credit scores. CDO’s are very complex because they are built into different levels, known as tranches, that consist of various types of assets. The tranches of CDO’s are structured on the basis of risk, with the lowest credit rated tranches holding the highest amount of risk. A demand for mortgage-backed securities and subprime mortgages

Here’s how it works. A family looking to buy a home would save up for a down-payment and then would contact a mortgage broker. The broker connects the family with lenders who in turn would give the family a loan. In return, they give the lender a mortgage which is an debt obligation. Investment banks such as JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, and Citigroup, looking for low risk, high return investments would contact the lenders and then buy their mortgages. Betting they could get a higher return on the interest rates homeowners paid on mortgages than they could from buying treasury bonds. The investment banks would then combine hundreds of thousands of mortgages, corporate buyout debt, car loans, credit card debts and other loans, into packages called Collateralized Debts Obligations (CDO). The investment banks in turn would sell shares of these CDO’s to investors all over the world. Every month when homeowners go to pay their mortgage, the money no longer goes back to the lender, but instead to the investors who own shares of the CDO’s the mortgages are packaged in. CDO’s were seen as the safe bets as the housing market was strong. If someone were to default on their mortgage, they could sell the house for a profit. At the same time Credit Rating Agencies gave the CDO’s AAA rating, which is the best credit rating. Along with the fact that qualifying for a mortgage was only for borrowers with good credit,

This paper is about the financial crisis in 2008 and how it all started as well as the ways that banking has operated and is operating today. I have watched all of Chairman Bernanke’s college lecture videos and he has gone into many different aspects of banking including how the Federal Reserve began, what lead to the recent financial crisis, and what we are doing as a nation to see what we can do to help eliminate from happening again. First, I will be summarizing Chairman Bernanke’s four lectures he did in 2012 at George Washington University.

One of the most devastating aspects of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 to middle-class America was the crash of the housing market. Millions of Americans were affected and faced foreclosures on homes that were purchased with subprime mortgages. The impact of these mortgages varied state to state. Nevada, one of the countries leading tourist destinations, led the market in foreclosure rates and housing appraisal drops. The government 's false sense of security in regards to the economy and the predatory lending practices of big banks such as Bank of America, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo, impacted the housing market negatively and ultimately led to millions of people in debt and without a home.

“The 2007-8 stock market crash was largely due to widespread defaulting on subprime mortgages.” (The 2007-08 Financial crisis in review) In other words, towards the end of 2006, almost all borrowers defaulted. Instead of getting money, lenders got houses back, and put them again on sale. With the huge number of houses on the market, the supply was massively high, while the demand was low. Hence, the bubbles started bursting and the prices of the houses started declining

The most recent financial crisis of 2007 was felt throughout the world, and brought about huge economic consequences that are still being felt to this day. Within the United States, the crisis undoubtedly resulted in a surge in poverty and unemployment, a significant drop in consumption, and the loss of trust in the capitalist economic system. Because of globalization, this crisis was felt through the intertwined global markets, affecting underdeveloped countries even more. Historical events from the past have taught us that financial crises such as the one we suffered during 2007 have occurred a vast number of times. From Mexico to Thailand, these financial crises have resulted in contagion worldwide, and have caused governments to